I suppose if I’d thought about these counterfeit £1 coin posts a bit more, I’d have put them in a logical order! Ah well.

Anyway, following on from the other post about crooked quids, I’ll go through a few more examples of counterfeit £1 coins…

Example #5:

This was the first ever counterfeit coin that I noticed when I was given it in change. How did I spot it? Well, frankly because it’s a piss poor copy! It’s perhaps not obvious from the above picture, but the colour of it is truly awful. Take a look at this – it’s the same coin compared to a real pound. You can see how the colour would stand out in a pile of real £1 coins. It’s also easy to see that the fake isn’t as clearly and centrally stamped as it should be.

Oh… shock horror! The reverse image is wrong (yet again). The front has been stamped 1995, which was a Welsh £1 coin year. We should have a Welsh dragon, but a 1994 Scottish rampant lion has been used instead. Clang!

1995 should have an edge inscription of “PLEIDIOL WYF I’M GWLAD“, but on this coin we find “DECUS ET TUTAMEN“. The edge font isn’t even spaced properly, so it just looks odd.

Quite a few mistakes there then! Don’t worry, it can only get better…

Example #6:

The front of this coin is again poor. It’s a shame as the colour is pretty good. The lettering is blobby and you can’t see any of the small holes in the ‘A’, ‘B’ or ‘9’. The border often merges with the surrounding dots.

1997 had three lions on the reverse. Oh dear, oh dear. Here we have the royal coat of arms (which has incidentally been stamped very well – even if it is the wrong picture!). The edge is only about 60% milled and the edge inscription isn’t actually even in a straight line.

Example #7:

Wow, this is strange! A coin where the year, the edge inscription and the reverse picture all match what they should be! Amazing. What gives this away as being fake then?

Take a look at the reverse of the coin. It’s not clearly stamped. You can hardly read the lettering. Is that just wear? Nope.

Take another look, this time at the dotted border around the coin. There’s a big gap between the edge and the dotted border around the top left hand side. Then, on the bottom right the dots merge into the edging. It’s basically not been stamped centrally.

Still not convinced?

It’s difficult getting a good picture of the edge of a coin, I’ve made you take my word for what’s on the edge in previous examples, but here I took the extra effort to show you.

In the picture above, the coin at the top is genuine the other is the counterfeit. The ‘T’s from the start of the word “TUTAMEN” on each coin have been lined up.

The ‘N’ from the end of the word “TUTAMEN” should therefore line up. It doesn’t. You can see the font used in the counterfeit is clearly wrong. In fact, it looks more like a small soldering iron has been used to inscribe it by hand as the lettering is very uneven. The depth of the inscription varies, the ‘D’ of “DECUS” is practically non-existant, whereas the ‘A’ of “TUTAMEN” is quite deep.

Phew. I only have one other fake… currently!

Example #8:

Here’s another that could easily pass for real. Both front and back are quite clearly stamped, however if you look closely, the front isn’t quite central. The reverse is, however you’ll notice that some of the border dots are missing. Strange.

The year on the front is 2001. We should be seeing a repeat of the 1996 design – a Celtic cross on the reverse. We’ve got… another coat of arms instead. A clear counterfeit then.

The edge inscription on this is what gives the coin away though. Mainly because it’s so faint! I’ve lined up the ‘D’ of “DECUS” on both coins this time…

Again, the top coins is real, below that is the counterfeit. Only 60% of the edge is milled and most of the letters are practically invisible!

Well that’s enough of that. I might do another post on this sometime in the future just to tie things together a bit more, but we’ll see.

In the meantime, check the change in your pocket… you might be surprised!